Amman was called Rabbath Ammon or Rabat Amon by Ammonites of the thirteenth century BCE; it is referred to in the Hebrew Bible as Rabbat Ammom.

The Bible names the “sons of Ammon” as being in perennial, though sporadic, conflict with the Israelites.

The “royal city” taken by David's general Joab (II Samuel 12:26) probably refers to the acropolis atop the plateau of Rabbath Ammon.

According to the biblical account, Genesis 19:37-38, Ammon and Moab were born to Lot and Lot's younger and elder daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Bible refers to both the Ammonites and Moabites as the "children of Lot.” Throughout the Bible, the Ammonites and Israelites are portrayed as mutual antagonists.

The Ammonites during the Exodus prohibited the Israelites from passing through their lands.

In the Book of Judges, the Ammonites work with Eglon, king of the Moabites against Israel.

Attacks by the Ammonites on Israelite communities east of the Jordan were the impetus behind the unification of the tribes under Saul.

Naamah, who was an Ammonite according to both 1 Kings 14:21-31 and 2 Chronicles 12:13, is the only wife of King Solomon to be mentioned by name in the Tanakh as having borne a child.

She is the mother of Solomon's successor, Rehoboam.

The city of Rabbah (modern Amman) in the lands east of the Jordan, has declined over the past several centuries.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus conquers it and renames it Philadelphia after himself.

The new Greek rulers from Syria institute an aggressive policy of Hellenization among their subject peoples.

Efforts to suppress Judaism spark a revolt in 166 BCE led by Judas (Judah) Maccabaeus, whose kinsmen in the next generation reestablish an independent Jewish kingdom under the rule of the Hasmonean Dynasty.

The East Bank remains a battleground in the continuing struggle between the Jews and the Seleucids.

Roman legions under Pompey methodically remove the last remnants of the Seleucids from Syria
by the first century BCE, converting the area into a full Roman province.

The new hegemony of Rome causes upheaval and eventual revolt among the Jews while it enables the Nabataeans to prosper.

Rival claimants to the Hasmonean throne appeal to Rome in 64 BCE for aid in settling the civil war that has divided the Jewish kingdom.

The next year Pompey, fresh from implanting Roman rule in Syria, seized Jerusalem and installs the contender most favorable to Rome as a client king.

On the same campaign, Pompey organizes the Decapolis, a league of ten self-governing Greek cities also dependent on Rome that includes Amman, Jarash, and Gadara (modern Umm Qays), on the East Bank.

Roman policy here is to protect Greek interests against the encroachment of the Jewish kingdom.

Rome makes Herod king of Judah when the last member of the Hasmonean Dynasty dies in 37 BCE.

With Roman backing, Herod (37-4 BCE) rules on both sides of the Jordan River.

The Jewish kingdom is divided among his heirs after his death and is gradually absorbed into the Roman Empire.

Construction begins on the Theater of Philadelphia (Amman) in 138.

A large number of churches have been built in the region of present Jordan from 313, when Christianity became a recognized religion of the Roman Empire.

Direct control over the Jordan region and much of Syria is transferred in the sixth century to the Ghassanids, Christian Arabs loyal to the eastern, or Byzantine, Empire.

The mission of these warrior-nomads is to defend the desert frontier against the Iranian Sassanian Empire to the east as well as against Arab tribes to the south; in practice, they are seldom able to maintain their claim south of Amman.

Muslims in the Jordan region are predominantly Sunni.

Conversion to Islam is nearly complete among Arabs on the East Bank, although the small Jewish community in Palestine and groups of Greek and Arab Christians are allowed to preserve their religious identities.

Arabic soon supplants Greek and Aramaic as the primary language of the Jordan region's inhabitants in both town and countryside.

The Umayyad caliphs govern their vast territories in a personal and authoritarian manner.

The caliph, assisted by a few ministers, holds absolute and final authority but delegates extensive executive powers to provincial governors.

Religious judges (qadis) administer Islamic law (sharia) to which all other considerations, including tribal loyalties, are theoretically subordinated.

The Umayyad Dynasty is overthrown in 750 by a rival Sunni faction, the Abbasids, who move  the capital of the caliphate to Baghdad.

The Jordan region becomes even more of a backwater, remote from the center of power.

Its economy declines as trade shifts from traditional caravan routes to seaborne commerce, although the pilgrim caravans to Mecca become an important source of income.

Depopulation of the towns and the decay of sedentary agricultural communities, already discernible in the late Byzantine period, accelerate in districts where pastoral Arab Bedouin, constantly moving into the area from the south, pursue their nomadic way of life.